A Mess of Things

by loveandothercrap

What do you do when every path you try going down is met with a road block? Today felt like one of those days. I got so stressed out from calling and being met with dead ends that I ended up getting a nose bleed from it all.

You see, when I walked out of my father’s life a little over seven years ago, I stopped getting updates on certain things, like the status of my college savings account. I have always been curious about it, but figured since he was still alive, I was never going to have answers. (And I wasn’t about to call him up asking about money because, frankly, he told me if I did that he would hang up on me quicker than one would hang up on a telemarketer.)

However, now that he is gone, I decided I needed answers. Answers I fear I will never receive.

I had an old bank statement of the account, dating back to 1998. Therefore, I had an account number, I had my social and my father’s social. I figured I was bound to get some form of answer, whether there was still an account or when it had been closed. I got neither.

Instead, I was met with road blocks. They could not find any record of the account number or any account under either socials. And they were able to check back as far as 2000-2001. So my only guess is, between the 1998 bank statement and my parents’ divorce in 1999, my father must have closed the account and moved it somewhere.

The only question now is…where? I have tracked down both my late grandparents’ socials, in hopes the account might have been made under their names at one point, but to be honest, I have no hope that is going to work.

When I first left my father’s house, I heard rumors from former coworkers that my stepmother strutted around, claiming to have gotten the money from my college savings account. I didn’t want to believe it because I didn’t want to think my dad would have been that cruel to take away my college education funds. After today though, I’m starting to wonder if he really was.

Which leads me to feeling conflicted. He is gone now. I hate thinking or speaking ill of the dead, but I can’t stop wondering… This man put his wife over his own flesh and blood so many times before. Why would him being dead make me change my feeling of betrayal? I felt it every day for the past 15 years when he made the decision to walk out of my mother and mine’s house. When he sided with his wife over everything, even when it was proven she was wrong.

And people want me to help fund his funeral? He has taken any money that I could access right away from me. I cannot help until after a death certificate has been filed and shown, and a death certificate cannot be filed until funeral arrangements have been paid for and taken care of. This woman spent over $20,000 that was placed by my late grandmother for my college education on worthless, pointless, and meaningless shit. I cannot even work up an ounce of sympathy for her plight right now. And the fact that she even asked for half of whatever is in the trust funds (which I am not sure of the amount yet) makes it even worse.

So right now, with every path blocked, I am at a lost of what to do. I really do not want to have a lawyer involved, but at the same time, I really want some form of answer. While I may never have the chance to return to college now, I still have two children that I would like to see in college at some point. I could have easily used these funds for them!

I don’t even know if things would have been different if I had remained on good terms with my father. I have reasons to believe that my college funds were already gone before I even made it into college. I did go to one year (two semesters) of community college after my father talked me out of going to a decent, four year college. And I paid for one of those semesters with my money that I saved from the first 18 years of my life: from working, holiday money, birthday money, etc. I had to beg and beg for the funds for the second semester, and he only gave them to me after I nearly got kicked out of college for failure to pay.

Everything in this situation is a mess. I have not had one ounce of luck on my side since I started collecting all the information regarding all these different accounts. I’m just hoping I will have a bit of luck tomorrow when I call the hospital again asking about a death certificate. Maybe, just maybe, it was filed there, so I do not have to wait until my stepmother finds the proper funds for a funeral home.

But who am I kidding? When has anything gone in my favor really?

So if you have kids, here is all I really have to say to you: Hug them closely. Talk to them if they do not live at home. Do not die before you speak to them if you haven’t in a long time. Do not put your children through a mess like this after you have passed. Show that you love them. Prove to them you love them.